A Man with Vision

This guy's story hit the news over here a few years ago. Simple idea!

I only found the story the other day, even though I noticed the date of the original publication was back in early 2008. But I can't help sharing a brilliant idea. I promise my next post won't be nearly as profound 😉

MW, did you even read the article? These glasses aren't for sale. Silver makes no profit from this. They are being freely given to the poor and needy in Asia and Africa. And there is a tremendous need (as the article says) in the developing world where trained specialists are desperately in demand: in Britain there is one optometrist for every 4,500 people, in sub-Saharan Africa the ratio is 1:1,000,000.

You can also see more info about Silver and his glasses on Wikipedia 😊

it sounds like these will be used for people who otherwise would be left with very poor sight and no glasses at all. a case of something is better than nothing. i'm sure they will be passed out only to those who truely need them and won't be given to anyone with good sight to do damamge. mw i'm appalled to hear that your sight was damamged by a greedy, disreputable excuse for an eye doctor. as a child my feet turned in badly enought that even as a baby i had to have leg braces with a bar between my feet at night. as a small child i wore the leg braces and then special shoes in grade school. the first pair of special shoes made my feet worse and after going to a different doctor it was dicovered they were the wrong type. i had to wear the right ones much longer because of it. in fact they doc wanted to put me in the hospital at 5 and break my legs and set them to better correct my condition. my father said absolutely not, too painful for his little girl. my feet still turn in a little especially when i'm tired. so i feel ya sweetie, bad medical care sucks!

This is why I am studying to be a doctor. I am a healer among my own people, but there is always more that I can learn. Plus, I can treat so many more people once I am a licensed physician.

i am impressed mw. you will be able to use the healing techniques you have learned as well as having advanced medical training. the best of both worlds will be at your disposal much to the benefit of your patients. that's great!

I applaud your desire to help people by becoming a doctor, MW. The world needs more people who think like you do.

As I said earlier, this article was not recent. To update, Josh Silver is now director of the non-profit Center for Vision in the Developing World at the University of Oxford. They are doing ground-breaking research into the ways and means of providing vision care to the developing world. I'm majorly impressed at how one man's simple idea can have such an impact.